By PHIL REEVES
KABUL - Two weary, white-bearded old men who were imprisoned in secret and without charge at the United States' Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for at least eight months were back in Afghanistan yesterday, saying they had never presented a threat to anyone.
The Afghans, released by the Americans - who said they were no longer of interest to them - described grim conditions at the base in Cuba, including being held in stifling heat and tiny cells and enduring hours of interrogation.
They did so as news emerged that more men had been delivered to Guantanamo by military aircraft to begin a life of confinement. The Pentagon confirmed the arrival of a plane carrying what was thought to be 30 detainees, but refused to give more details.
The two men, Faiz Mohammad and Mohammad Sediq, were freed with a third Afghan man, Jan Mohammad, in his mid-30s. All three had months ago been captured, blindfolded, shackled and flown thousands of kilometres from home.
Sitting on hospital beds in Kabul, where they underwent a check-up, the men gave differing accounts of their detention, which included allegations of being locked in 2.5m by 2.5m sweltering cells; denied contact with their families, and interrogated for hours.
But they said they were not tortured or beaten, and looked relatively healthy, though frail.
At the time of their detention, US officials said they were rounding up high-ranking "terrorists". This is a description that Afghanistan officials have found extremely hard to match with Faiz Mohammad, who appears to be at least his 70s.
One American correspondent described him as a "partially deaf, shrivelled old man who was unable to answer simple questions" and at times "babbled like a child".
"I don't know why the Americans arrested me," he told the Associated Press.
"I told them I was innocent. I'm just an old man."
Asked if he was angry at the American soldiers who arrested him, he replied: "I don't mind. They took my old clothes and gave me new clothes."
Faiz was still wearing a Guantanamo identity tag on his wrinkled wrist showing his date of birth to be 1931, although, like many Afghans, he was unsure of his age, and at one point claimed to be 105.
"My family haven't heard from me, and I haven't heard from them," he said tremulously.
Faiz was arrested at a mosque in the province of Uruzgan, where he had gone to seek medication. He said he was tied and blindfolded, then flown by helicopter to Kandahar and by plane to Cuba.
"They interrogated us for hours at a time. They wanted to know, 'Where are you from? Are you a member of the Taleban? Did you support the Taleban? Were your relatives Taleban? Did the Taleban give you weapons?"'
He said the Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo were low-level Taleban fighters or religious leaders. They were kept in small cells housing a dozen prisoners each. But he denied being physically mistreated.
"We had enough food to eat. We could pray and wash with water five times a day. We had the Koran and read it all the time."
The men's accounts of their treatment differed in the details, although all three spoke of long and repeated interrogations, each lasting at least an hour.
Mohammad Sediq - a gnarled figure with a cane, also apparently in his 70s - said inmates were "held in small cages" and were "eating and defecating at the same place" and "treated like animals".
The New York Times reported Mohammad Sediq complained of being locked in tiny and hot cells 24 hours a day, with just two 15-minute breaks a week for exercise. But he also said the American guards treated their religion with respect.
The treatment of the detainees, and the secrecy surrounding their imprisonment, has long been a worry to international human rights groups.
Jan Mohammad, a Taleban recruit, said he was handed over to the US troops after capture by a Northern Alliance commander.
He said he had been forced to fight for the Taleban.
But "we are happy now. You can imagine if you release a bird from a cage, it will be happy."
Jan said the only Red Cross message he received from his family was three days before he was flown out of Cuba.
Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch's US programme, said the release of the Afghan men underscored the need for the US to meet its obligations under the Geneva Conventions, by holding "a competent tribunal" to determine the status of the Guantanamo detainees.
"When this first began, US officials said they had screened these people, and said they were the worst of the worst ," said Fellner.
"George Bush called them killers. Now it turns out that an unknown number may have been picked up by mistake."
The Pentagon said last week it would release some of the detainees from 43 countries who were no longer of intelligence value or likely to be prosecuted.
The military has released few details about the detainees, beyond saying some had tried to commit suicide. This month, about 50 were reportedly held in solitary confinement and 26 were on anti-depressants or anti-psychotic drugs.
There is anger in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the detainees. President Hamid Karzai, of Afghanistan, is under pressure to secure the release of dozens of prisoners whom Afghans say have been wrongly arrested.
Pakistani interrogators who visited Guantanamo a few months ago concluded that nearly all of their 53 detained countrymen were low-level soldiers.
- INDEPENDENT
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Freed Afghan 'killers' old, frail and confused
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